Letter from Harvey Whitlock, 28 September 1835

and as I desire to know the will of God  concerning me; Believing it is my duty to m ake known unto you my real situation.

I shall therefore, dispasionately procede to give  a true and untarnished relation; I need not  tell you that in former times, I have preached  the word; and endeavored to be instant in  season out of season, to reprove rebuke exhort  and faithfully to discharge that trust repo sed in me. But Oh! with what grief & lame ntable sorrow and anguish do I have to relate  that I have fallen, from that princely station  where unto our God, has called me. Reasons  why are unnecessary. May the fact suffice;  and believe me when I tell you, that I have  sunk myself, (since my last separation from  this boddy) in crimes of the deepest dye, and  that I may the better enable you to understand  what my real sins are, I will mention (although  pride forbids it) some that I am not guilty  of, my <hands> have not been stained with inocent  blood; neither have I lain couched around  the cottages of my fellow men to seize and car ry off the booty; nor have I slandered my ne ighbor, nor bourn fals testimony, nor taken  unlawful hire, nor oppressed the widdow  nor fatherless, neither have I persecuted the  Saints. But my hands are swift to do iniq uity, and my feet are fast running in  the paths of vice and folly; and my heart [p. 39]